Wednesday (June 1) found the return of NBC’s sometimes wacky medical drama, “The Night Shift.” Honestly, before we continue down this road, we need to get something off our chests … we never expected the show to get this far. Color us baffled!

The episode, titled “The Times They Are A Changin’,” found T.C. (Eoin Macken) and Jordan (Jill Flint) attempting to pick up the pieces and move forward with their professional life after that whole failed proposal/miscarriage/coma debacle. Hey, that’s one way to end a season. But, at least Drew (Brendan Fehr) and Rick’s (Luke MacFarlane) proposal ended happily for everyone. Or did it? Instead of taking that job in South Carolina, Drew has found himself back in Afghanistan and there’s absolutely no mention of Rick. What exactly happened there?

When “The Night Shift” first premiered, the motorcycle doctor drama presented a lovely mix of emergency room gore, hospital hi-jinx and kooky soap opera shenanigans that it felt like the perfect summer series. With it’s unexpected Season 2 renewal, it felt like the show started actually taking itself a bit too seriously that it lost that sense of fun. Now, we’re at Season 3 and If this first episode is any sign, it feels like this new Afghanistan storyline may be the show’s strongest. It’s also, so far, the silliest.

Dr. Drew — yeah, we know — and his new doctor buddy Syd Jennings (Jennifer Beals) are presented with a 15-year-old pregnant patient who is deathly afraid of her husband. As we’ve seen in previous episodes, Drew doesn’t deal best with authority figures and is driven to do what’s morally right. This character trait rears its head against the armed military man when he storms into the operating room, demanding his wife be released.

The sound of a gunshot only alludes to some dangerous — and political, probably — hot water Drew is going to find himself in going forward. But if NBC is going to continue down this path for Season 3, it may be best to not play sinister sounding Middle Eastern music right when a gun is drawn by an Afghani citizen, no matter how evil they may be.

Also, we understand budgetary issues and all … but is it possible to find a location that feels way more Afghanistan-like? Honestly, those brief outdoor shots looked a heck of a lot more like New Mexico, which we suppose makes sense since that is where the series is filmed. Yet, if you mix that aesthetic distraction along with the clunky dialog that played out throughout these hospital scenes, it became more and more plausible that a Sharknado could simply breeze by at any time and no one would bat an eyelash.

Actually, now that we think of it, adding a tornado of ocean predators to the mix would only improve upon the formula. With NBC’s connection to the Syfy Channel, we think this crossover could totally work. Get on that, NBC. Oh, and also, where the heck is Rick!?